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New DVD: Back from Japan Seminar with Mats Hjelm

From Budoshop by BUDOSHOP.SE

- New DVD from BUDOSHOP.SE – Click HERE to order! (74 min)
- Also available for download (52 min)

On this seminar Mats showed techniques and ideas from the trainings he had been to with Hatsumi Soke and the Shihan earlier this month.He taught Taijutsu techniques, kenjutsu, rokushakubo, yari, naginata, hanbo techniques mixed.

The DVD version contains 20 minutes of extra footage from two mini seminars with the theme Naginata and Yari.

Note: The instructions was in Swedish, but there is really no need to understand exactly what was said. There is not so much philosophical talk, but more more action that you will understand in the movement.

Sample clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu1ufgwvLXg

About the download

Click here for more information about our download files and how it works!

Keiko#32 BACK FROM JAPAN #23 SEMINAR with MATS HJELM

From Budoshop by BUDOSHOP.SE

seminar banner

52 minutes, 654 Mb for $19.99
(853×480, H.264, ACC, 1703 bit)
Available as download or DVD

On this seminar Mats showed techniques and ideas from the trainings he had been to with Hatsumi Soke and the Shihan earlier this month.He taught Taijutsu techniques, kenjutsu, rokushakubo, yari, naginata, hanbo techniques mixed.

There is also a DVD version that contains 20 minutes of extra footage from two mini seminars with the theme Naginata and Yari.

Note: The instructions was in Swedish, but there is really no need to understand exactly what was said. There is not so much philosophical talk, but more more action that you will understand in the movement.

Sample clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu1ufgwvLXg

About the download

Click here for more information about our download files and how it works!

Koppō & Kaname: The How and the What of Bujinkan Martial Arts

From The Magick & The Mundane » Bujinkan by Shawn Gray

Time has flown by since my last blog entry, and I’d like to thank the readers who took the time to share their comments here on the blog and share links to it on Facebook. Your feedback indicated that there’s still an interest in the personal histories of people who’ve devoted significant chunks of their lives to train at the fountainhead of Bujinkan martial arts in Japan, and at the same time several readers mentioned resonances with their own martial quests, creating new links and points of comparison. In the time since, life has continued to be challenging and exciting. Taxes, Training and Translation work have occupied much of my time, and I also made the decision to close down my guest apartment in Noda as of the end of April. (There were a number of reasons for the closure, but rest assured, the original guest apartment in Abiko is still available.)

Right after making the apartment move, I left Japan for six weeks to visit family and instruct at a number of Bujinkan seminars in Canada (“Sakura No Kaze” in Vancouver, and then at Bujinkan Manitoba in Winnipeg) and the U.S. (Bujinkan Sanami Dojo, Austin, June 9/10, and in Denver the following weekend). During the Q&A session at the end of the seminar in Winnipeg this past weekend, there was a question about the differences between the concepts of Koppō (骨法) and Kaname (要, also pronounced Yō). Afterwards, the seminar host, Adam McColl, asked if I’d write a blog post about it, and so here we are. :-)

The Bujinkan training theme of the year in 2000 was Kotō Ryū Koppōjutsu (虎倒流骨法術). The regular way of writing Koppō uses the kanji meaning “bone (kotsu) method (hō),” due to the characteristic use of the body’s skeletal structure in Kotō Ryū. Kotsu and Hō combine phonetically to make koppō. In his own characteristic style, Sensei often used a double meaning of kotsu that year to convey an important aspect of the year’s theme. It happens that, in Japanese, the kanji for kotsu meaning bone (骨) can also be used to mean “knack, skill, trick, secret, or know-how.” Sensei used this double-meaning to emphasize the importance of gaining an intuitive understanding of how a technique works – the knack or trick to applying a given technique well.

It’s interesting that now, twelve years later (one cycle of the Chinese zodiacal calendar – both 2000 and 2012 are years of the Dragon), Sensei has chosen Kaname as the theme. I went into some detail about the meaning of Kaname in a previous blog post, and I won’t repeat all of that here, but the relationship between the two terms Koppō and Kaname is an interesting one. Whereas Koppō relates to how a technique works, Kaname relates not only to how a technique works, but to its essential, defining characteristics. Koppō relates to method, Kaname adds the element of essential identity – it includes not only the way of applying a technique, but the essence of the technique itself.

Another important point to note is that the name of the training theme for 2012 includes the word Mamoru (護), which means to protect. Another reading for this same kanji is Go, as in Goshinjutsu (護身術), “self-defense“. In the name for this year’s theme, the kanji are written together as Yōgo (要護), meaning “to protect the essence.” In the previous post on Kaname, I discussed various things that essence can mean in this context, but in comparison to Koppō, the method to a technique’s application, Yōgo tells us that not only is it important to be able to make a technique work, but that there are essential points that are necessary for it to work properly, and that although variation, or henka is an indispensable concept, there are certain defining characteristics that are to be preserved. Although we can make (or even “force”) a technique to work, its essence is lost if the essential points are not preserved. To learn budō properly, we must not simply fall back on henka as soon as we run into difficulty – to do so would be laziness. We should take the time and make the effort to learn the techniques of our art correctly and thoroughly, discovering, understanding, and integrating the essence of each waza so that we can not only practice Bujinkan budō properly, but also, as teachers, responsibly preserve its essence as we transmit it to the next generation.


Thoughts on Kaname

From The Magick & The Mundane » Bujinkan by Shawn Gray

I was asked today to write something about Kaname in advance of a seminar I’ll be giving at Bujinkan Manitoba on May 26/27. The following are some thoughts I put down based on my experience of feeling and hearing what Sensei has been teaching on this subject this year.

Kaname (要) is a word that means “essence,” or “essential point.” It refers to that which is necessary for a thing to be what it is. For example, each technique from our Nine Schools has something about it that makes it unique. For Ganseki Nage to be Ganseki Nage, and not Omote Gyaku, there are things about it that make it distinct. Those things are the “Kaname” of Ganseki Nage, the things that make it what it is, distinct from other techniques, the things that comprise its essential character.

Hatsumi Sensei used to talk a lot about Kyusho. Early on, he talked about how important it was to know the Kyusho points, and about how important it is to practice hitting them accurately and effectively. People were taught the names of fixed Kyusho points found in various Ryu Ha, and diagrams of the locations of these points on the body appeared in books. Later, Hatsumi Sensei emphasized that it is important not only to know where the fixed Kyusho are, but to realize that other people also know where they are, so they can be protected or used against you. Being fixed in place, they become common knowledge, something that is easily referenced by anyone with an interest in the human body. Later on, Sensei would emphasize that it’s important to be able to create your own Kyusho at will, rather than being tied into a fixed idea that a Kyusho is a fixed location on the body. The idea of Kyusho became more to do with taking advantage of openings that the opponent gives you, or that you create, regardless of whether or not the openings happen to coincide with a set “pressure point.”

Now we are talking about Kaname, and in this I think Sensei is taking the Kyusho idea one step further to apply to any factor in any situation rather than any point (fixed or not) on the body. So not only are there Kyusho on fixed points on the body, and not only can new ones be created on an as-needed basis, but any of the factors in a given situation, in a given moment, can be used to create the optimal outcome. In Budo techniques, these factors generally fall into what I call the Kihon No Goshin (基本の五心) – the 5 Essential Basics: Distance, Timing, Angling, Balance, and Force.

When working through a technique, at any given moment in that process, there is a key essential factor (which is likely one of the Kihon No Goshin, or a combination of two or more – but it could also be something else, like the placement of an elbow, or that a hand is in a certain position at a certain point in order to guard against a potential attack at that point) that must be employed in order to produce the optimal result. The more this does not happen, the less efficient and the less effective things become. It’s the same thing in life.

Shiraishi Sensei often says, “Constantly ask yourself, ‘What is the most important thing that I could be doing right now?‘” At any given moment in our lives, there is Something that we could be doing that is most in line with who we are and what we need to be doing at this moment (both at this moment in time and at this time in our lives) in order to accomplish that which we are here to do. That Something is the Kaname of that moment, and the less often we do that Something each moment, the further away we grow from being Who we are meant to be. In Taijutsu, the Kaname is the essential point that makes a movement work, its functional essence, and in life, the Kaname is the Essence of Who-You-Are – your true inner self, your ultimate identity.

In Taijutsu, the Kaname is dynamic, always changing, always flowing from one point to the next. It is not optimal to do the same Something each moment. It is not optimal that every technique be the same. It is important to be able to constantly adapt with the Kaname, to be able to recognize it when it appears, and follow it where it goes. In everyday Japanese, the word “Kaname” is often used with 2 other characters to read, “Kanjin Kaname” (肝心要), “the essential point.” When the characters are changed to 神心神眼 (normally read as “Shinshin Shingan”), they can also be pronounced “Kanjin Kaname,” but with the meaning of, “divine mind, divine eyes.” In other words, divine mind and insight reveal what the Essence is.

In training this year, we are looking at ways of recognizing the Kaname in Budo, at ways of seeing where it is going, and at ways of learning how to learn to ride with it as it constantly flows and changes. Taking the lesson beyond the walls of the dojo, there is always Something optimal that we can be doing to grow and evolve with the changes that Life presents us, the essential point of every moment.

Shikin Haramitsu Daikomyo – May each moment bring you Great Light!